


First Flight, First Memory

by scherryzade



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Backstory, Childhood, Gen, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-12
Updated: 2009-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scherryzade/pseuds/scherryzade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's one of his earliest memories. (John doesn't really know how much is real memory, how much is based on the way his parents used to tell the story. It's layered over with all the things he knows now.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Flight, First Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 'Happyfest' prompt 'Stargate: Atlantis ; John Sheppard ; first flight' and posted on [23rd July, 2009](http://community.livejournal.com/bringthehappy/18549.html?thread=339573#t339573).

It's one of his earliest memories. (John doesn't really know how much is real memory, how much is based on the way his parents used to tell the story. It's layered over with all the things he knows now.)

He remembers screaming and screaming and screaming. He really did not want to leave. He did not want to go on the plane. (John doesn't remember why. He doubts that he knew what was going on. Hence, the tantrum.)

He remembers his father's unreadable expression. (John suspects it wasn't so unreadable at the time, simply that he didn't know how to read it, and now it's been replaced with the face he does remember.)

He screams for his mother.

He remembers not wanting to sit in his nanny's lap. (VickyTracyNikkiHoneySteve - he doesn't remember which, and it might have been an earlier one, the name forgotten altogether. They were all young, and cheerful, and blonde, and he sees a lot more in that memory than he remembers.)

He remembers the plane shaking like it would fall apart, but by then he was so heartsick tired he couldn't even scream. (John knows he wasn't heartsick. He was three. But the only time he felt so worn out since then, he was heartsick.)

And then, there she is.

She leans down to kiss his forehead. (John doesn't know if that's his first memory of his mother, it's so bound up in how he always remembers her. Tall and slender, leaning down to listen to him, her hair tied back in a utilitarian plait, and always a stray lock twisting loose so he could grasp it.)

He throws his arms around her neck.

He remembers her laughter shaking through him as she lifts him up. "Hey Johnny," she says. "Hey John."

He laughs with her, not knowing why. (John still laughs a little, at the memory, because only a toddler could go from such agony to outright joy in so little time.)

She says - something - as she carries him through the plane. (John doesn't remember what else she said. He only remembers that he was comforted.)

He remembers the dark sweep of her hair, the rough cloth of her shirt, the smell of oil.

He remembers a window, and the blue of the sky. (John suspects that he should say that the sky never looked so big as in that moment, but that would be a lie. The sky has always been that big, that blue, for John.)

He sits in his mother's lap, her hand on his belly to keep him steady.

She points at the endless shapes and toys in front, reciting nonsense words. (John, like most children, learnt his mother tongue at his mother's knee.)

He remembers grabbing at the controls in front of him. (John had as many toy cars and trucks as he could have wanted. He already knew how to steer, and he was so determined to show his mother what to do.)

She throws back her head and laughs, and when she looks down at him, she's beautiful. (He doesn't know if he remembers how she looked correctly, but he knows that he remembers how she felt exactly.)

~~~ 


End file.
